During the night, you can forget about solar energy and the wind does not always blow.
You either need backup from conventional (natural gas) utilities or we need to find efficient ways of storing huge amounts of energy.
A new Science article propoposes making batteries out of biological waste from paper mills.
The Economist (yes, the economist into chemistry) explains how it works:
"Any battery-consists of two electrodes (an anode and a cathode) and an electrolyte. Current, in the form of positive ions such as protons..., flows through the electrolyte from anode to cathode while a balancing current of electrons, which are negatively charged, makes the same journey via an external circuit. The electrons can be employed, before they return to the battery, to do useful work. To recharge the battery, electrons are pushed in the other direction by (say) the current from a solar cell and the ions are thus drawn back whence they came.Electrolytes are often made of simple, abundant (and therefore cheap) chemicals. The electrodes, however, are not. They usually require metals (lead, zinc, nickel or lithium, for example) whose cost renders so-called grid-scale batteries prohibitively expensive. Making cheaper electrodes would be a big step towards grid-scale batteries and that is what, in the case of the cathode, Dr Milczarek and Dr Inganas hope they have done.For these two researchers propose making one of a battery's three components, its cathode, out of the waste from paper mills. But if someone could now come up with an equally cheap anode, the age of the wooden battery-and with it the age of reliable, always-on alternative energy-might yet dawn."
0 comments:
Post a Comment